“Everyone in Europe should take it as a failure that four years into the financial crisis, we can still have the ECB threatening to effectively close down a country’s banking system unless it immediately agrees terms,” Martin told the Dáil. He pointed out that capital controls, which had previously been prohibited in the single market, were now being re-introduced.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said that the bail-out process will be “exceptionally challenging” for the Cypriot people and acknowledged the “real strain” and “very genuine anxiety” that this involved.

An initial EU-IMF bail-out for Cyprus (for €10 billion) included a minimum levy of 6.75 per cent on all bank deposits but was voted down by the Cypriot Parliament after widespread protests.

The revised rescue package also provides for €10 billion, paid by tax rises, privatisations and a bank levy on deposits worth over €100,000. The island has the EU’s lowest corporation tax rate (10 per cent) but this is now likely to increase under international pressure.

Cyprus is the second smallest EU economy but its large financial sector was damaged when Greek borrowers failed to repay loans to Cypriot banks. The situation is complicated by allegations of money laundering, linked to some Russian investors, which meant that the German Government was reluctant to intervene in the bail-out.

“I am firmly of the view that government must be a more active and demanding shareholder,” Varadkar stated. “This will include a re-emphasis on the ports’ commercial remit with a requirement that they adhere to a dividend policy and invest and develop on a sound commercial basis.

“While no ports are earmarked for privatisation, private sector investment and involvement will be encouraged.”

The new national ports policy designates five ports of national significance: Dublin, Cork, Shannon Foynes, Rosslare and Waterford. The other 14 have a regional significance and local authorities will take shareholdings in them.

All ports will retain their commercial mandate. Investments in deep water capacity will only be approved after “stringent analysis” by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport.

Irish Maritime Development Office Director Glenn Murphy said that the policy “provides clarity” for port companies and the Irish and international companies “that depend every day on effective and efficient ports to connect their business with the global economy.”

Varadkar added: “Too many governments have taken a one-size-fits all approach to our ports sector.  We want to end this laissez-faire approach and encourage shareholders to take a much more hands-on attitude to maritime ports.”

The Irish EU presidency added to the nation’s influence in America on St Patrick’s Day, as visiting political figures discussed trans-Atlantic trade and immigration in Washington.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore and US Secretary of State John Kerry discussed Northern Ireland, the proposed EU-US trade agreement, Syria and immigration reform when they met. Gilmore then reported back to a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Dublin later in the week. Enda Kenny, meanwhile, focused on a shared Irish-American heritage when he addressed the traditional White House reception.

Kenny stated: “Just as we Irish made our own of America, today in Ireland, we do as we have always done. As a nation, we make joy from sadness. As a country, we forge success from difficulty. As a republic, we create ourselves anew. And as we do, we remember and we honour the old.”

This year’s shamrock bowl was made by Sean Egan, a former master engraver with Waterford Crystal who set up his own business after he became unemployed.

“Ever since the first son or daughter of the Emerald Isle set foot here on American soil, this day has served as a reminder of just how many threads of green are woven into the red, white, and blue,” President Barack Obama remarked as he welcomed his Irish visitors.

Obama looked forward to four “very green” years in the White House: “My new Chief of Staff is a McDonough. My National Security Advisor is a Donilon. Our new CIA Director is a Brennan. My new head speechwriter is a Keenan. And [Vice-President] Joe Biden has very kindly agreed to stay on as Irishman-in-Chief.”

The Government hopes that the 50,000 ‘undocumented’ Irish immigrants will benefit from the ‘earned citizenship’ proposed by the Obama Administration. Earned citizenship would involve security checks, and the payment of taxes and a penalty before immigrants are legalised as US citizens. This must be passed by Congress and, in the meantime, the Administration is increasing penalties for US businesses that employ undocumented immigrants.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin was not in the USA due to the Meath East by-election campaign. Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams and Vice-President Mary Lou McDonald also met Secretary Kerry to discuss the northern political process and the Middle East.

Back at home, President Michael D Higgins recalled how St Patrick faced his “many challenges and adversities” with a “great generosity of spirit, forgave readily and refused to succumb to fatalism or resentment.” He sensed a national determination to “craft with compassion, and in solidarity with each other, a new version of our Irishness, of which we can all be proud.”

“We have made good progress,” Brian Hayes affirms as he reviews the Government’s performance on his remit: public sector reform. “The plan is unique in that it is very firmly focused on deliverables, by very clear timelines with people responsible.”

Hayes’ work as Minister of State mainly focuses on the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform with extra responsibilities for international tax issues and customs reform at the Department of Finance. The Cabinet sub-committee on reform has adopted a green-amber-red ‘traffic light’ system to measure progress against targets, and those indicators form the basis for Hayes’ confidence.

“By and large, we are on target for all we were going to do,” he states, “and the fact that it has been driven by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, that public sector reform has been allied to expenditure, means we are able to get things done in a more timely manner.”

Looking at the macro picture, of staff numbers and the pay and pensions bill, the Minister says that “what has been achieved it is pretty impressive” and he hopes that finalising a new agreement on Croke Park “will allow us to do more between now and 2015.”

Hayes emphasises: “All of that is undeniable.” However, he adds: “The area I think we need to focus more on is the communications piece of it and the deliverables as far as the public are concerned. What tangibles have been brought to bear, that have made a difference to the end user, the consumer? And we are constantly looking at that and how we can improve that. The tax-payer needs to feel there is a difference.”

The details, though, can turn technical when shared services are part of the message. “It is very hard to sell but I can see it,” Hayes replies. “The citizen needs to understand that shared services will save us a lot of money, not just in how we do business across all the government departments but what savings are actually realised. For example, savings of 6 per cent on the HR shared services.”

His officials have met the North’s Department of Finance and Personnel, which is ahead in shared services and has set up separate bodies delivering IT and HR. “We learnt a lot looking at what went right and what went wrong and the key thing for shared services was that it has to actually work,” Hayes points out. “It has to be delivered. For HR shared services, we will go live shortly and we will be issuing a full public position in May, and that is going to make a big difference in terms of HR.”

The department’s focus will then move on to pay, pensions and banking. The shared services project, he says, is “working well” but much of it will make a difference in how the Civil Service transacts with itself rather than the public.

“The bit we are more interested in doing is how exactly this technology is going to make a difference for the citizen,” Hayes contends. “For example, the rostering for gardaí so we have more gardaí on duty at key times, and more flexibility of education services so that parents know exactly that the savings under Croke Park I are being achieved. That is the piece I am more concerned about, in terms of demonstrating to the public what savings are being made.”

A lot of this is predicated on whether the unions will support Croke Park II but he is hopeful. “I think it is a good deal,” he continues. “It is a deal that will give certainty to public sector workers over the next three years to 2016, whilst also giving certainty for the State in closing the deficit by another €1 billion.”

Progress is sometimes best seen from a distance. Hayes’ Belgian counterpart, whom he met in the week before the interview, was “seriously astonished” by the reduction in pay and pensions and numbers in Ireland without losing any days to strike action. The “industrial peace during this crisis” was a positive for Ireland.

Procurement

Minister Hayes is responsible for public procurement, which is worth €13 billion in contracts and goods and services. He is keen to get savings in this area: “We now have appointed Paul Quinn who has come from the private sector and is leading the National Procurement Office. We have very ambitious targets over a three-year period of saving somewhere between €250 million and €630 million by better procurement, with more centralised buying and more frameworks in place.”

Hayes is “very keen to encourage the all-Ireland market” in procurement, which he sees as an opportunity for SMEs to “really get on the pitch and win some new business.” In his view, this can be only be done by improving processes such as eTenders, which has been done, and making it easier for businesses to interact with the State.

“If there is one criticism, we have too many public procurers,” he comments. “One of Paul Quinn’s key tasks is to put in place a more robust system with fewer public procurers but with people with more expertise of markets. That is something we are keen to focus on.”

Public sector procurement, in summary, needs to be seen as a part of the deficit reduction narrative. Hayes explains: “People talk about taxes going up and expenditure going down. They don’t see it [procurement] as better value for money. I am confident we can make significant cost savings.”

The Minister also points to progress in the sale of State assets e.g. the sale of Bord Gáis Energy and the significant deleveraging of ESB’s business, by selling the non-strategic elements of power generation.

“We have said we are looking at selling part of Aer Lingus when the conditions are right,” he remarks. “Our whole policy on this is predicated on the view that we will only do this on two conditions. One, we would like to use some of the proceeds of any sale for the purposes of NewERA; we think it is important that the State looks at non-bank lending and the way you do that is you look at some of your well capitalised assets for the purpose of an investment fund. And secondly, we are not going to get into fire sales. We have made that very clear from the start.”

Hayes’ perspective is as follows. Where a semi-state company is well-capitalised, has a good international business and has come through this crisis, there is no reason why non-strategic parts of those businesses cannot be used for the purposes of investment.

“We are confident that will happen,” he states. “When we came into government, we were told that if we sold any state asset all the proceeds would go towards the writing down of debt. We managed to obtain quite a substantial progress with the troika, accepting that 50 per cent could be used for jobs stimulus and the other 50 per cent could be used for leveraging private sector money.”

Property portfolio

When asked about the rationalisation of the State’s property portfolio the Minister replies that this is another area where “we have made a lot of progress and no-one knows about it.”

Public sector floorspace was reduced by 945,000 square feet over a four-year period, between 2008 to 2012, equating to a saving of around €28 million on the State’s actual rental costs. The bill has come down from €135 million to

€108 million this year. About 60 per cent of property used by the State is State-owned with 40 per cent being leased.

“This is going to change dramatically because the public sector is contracting, we have abolished or soon to abolish half of all quangos as a result of a government decision,” he comments. “There is less need for all of this space and, if truth be told, we have too much space because of the disastrous policy of decentralisation.”

The department will be bringing a proposal to the Cabinet on behalf of the Office of Public Works, which has responsibility for the State’s property portfolio, to secure greater control of the entirety of the State asset bank, including the ‘owned estate’.

“Instead of every organisation having its own front door, we might have a number of organisations in one premises working together,” the Minister explains. “Secondly, I want to have proper space norms across the system. We have to challenge this notion in the public sector that you are entitled to X amount of space. That is totally bonkers in today’s world and quite frankly we need to challenge that and have much more open plan office space, as the private sector has.”

His third priority is finding new ways of getting private sector money into the public sector for the property portfolio, to ensure good maintenance of public buildings.

“I am very open-minded when it comes to sale and lease back and looking for opportunities for the private sector to invest,” he confirms. “We do not have the money at the moment to refurbish and refit what we own and if we can get agreement with the private sector to refurbish it we could lease the property back over a period of time. That is a space I am really interested in launching and I want to do a pilot in this area quite shortly.”

Opportunities

Hayes continues: “There is a huge opportunity to get money into State assets that could be paid back over a period of time. So we are talking about the total overhaul and rationalisation of what we own because we need to get those norms of space, thermal efficiency and where it is based.”

He finds an obsession of having properties in Dublin 2 rather than in Dublin 22 or Dublin 24 “where you get it at a fraction of the price.” The Minister appreciates that, at a policy level, people need to be in close to each other but for transactional parts of government, there is no reason why they cannot be located on the outskirts of Dublin.

The Department of Social Protection and Revenue Commissioners are the largest clients. “It is going to be difficult,” he acknowledges, “because it is going to be a culture shock to move away from the silo mentality.”

Hayes is responsible for the Office of Public Works which is a “very historic organisation, predating the founding of the State.” Indeed, the office was founded by Act of Parliament in 1831. It does everything from flood prevention to capital schemes, heritage sites, tourism, procurement and managing the State’s property portfolio.

“We are actually the classic shared service,” he quips. “We have experts from property to procurement, which the State calls upon. There is a great opportunity for OPW’s expertise in these areas to come to the fore in the reform of the public sector.”

Procurement and property, the main focus of our conversation, are the two most important areas for which the OPW has responsibility in terms of the Public Sector Reform Plan and Hayes is sure that it can lead the way. He surmises: “There is a chunk of work the OPW can deliver through its expertise to get the overall public sector reform plan over the line.”

Profile: Brian Hayes

Brian Hayes is Minister of State within the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Brian is TD for Dublin South West and he lives in Tallaght. He trained as a teacher. “But I never taught. I used to write speeches for John Bruton when I left college.”

He was firstly a Senator nominated by the Taoiseach (1995-1997) before his election to Dáil Éireann in 1997. After losing his seat in the 2002 general election, he returned to the Seanad on the Cultural and Educational Panel. He was re-elected to the Dáil in 2007.

He served as leader of the party in the Seanad, a member of South Dublin County Council and was a Fine Gael National Youth and Education Officer. Brian is married to Genevieve and they have three children: Mark, Ellen and Michael.

Interests outside politics: “I won’t say golf as I haven’t played since last October. With three kids under 11, that keeps me busy. I enjoy history and also writing. The most frustrating thing is not getting the time to write. I find it very difficult to give a speech I have had no input into.”

On being a Minister: “It is very challenging because the economic environment is challenging. Both Fine Gael and Labour had been in opposition for 15 years and suddenly we are in government with this massive majority. However, one of the benefits for me is working with Michael Noonan and Brendan Howlin. I think their experience is extraordinary and both of them have very clear minds about what has to be done.”

Throughout Finnish history, the country has found itself performing well when it faces difficulties, according to Jaani Heinonen. Despite having a larger land area than the British Isles, Finland has a relatively small population of 5.4 million. The start and end of the Cold War presented the Finnish economy with major problems but the country has risen above them each time.

Heinonen states that almost every policy area in Finland involves a genuine team effort between the public and private sectors, in a way perhaps not seen elsewhere in Europe. The 2009 Universities Act restructured universities into separate legal entities and “drove them from a really comfortable, steady funding stream” where staff worked for the state to “having to be more innovative by themselves in building up the funding.” Seeking funding from external sources “really pushes them out to the real world.”

That concept of public-private partnership is “forming the way we are acting” and bringing in businesspeople to university boards “gives a better understanding of what’s needed on both sides.”

Heinonen previously worked as the China Director for FinNode, the Finnish innovation network. FinNode is led in Finland by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the international trade agency (FinPro) and the main R&D funding body (Tekes). In target countries, the lead organisations work as follows:

• Finnish embassies and consulates contribute to official networking and the Innovation Watch process (i.e. identifying short-term and long-term market signals and making sense of them for Finnish industry);

• Tekes finances R&D and innovation operations and the relevant professional services; and

• FinPro provides internationalisation for Finnish companies and promotes inward investment into Finland.

A ‘Team Finland’ approach combines all functions of government to promote a more internationalised economy, external trade and foreign direct investment. Similarly, the UK and Irish governments have tasked their embassies in emerging markets with supporting the Northern Ireland Executive’s overseas investment work.

At present, FinNode operates in China, Japan, India, Russia and the USA but it is “looking seriously” at expanding into Brazil, South Africa and more European countries.

Finland has a good track record in re-inventing its economy, moving from agriculture into heavy industry after the Second World War and then developing hi-tech industry (centred on Nokia) after the collapse of the USSR. The economy is currently in a transition from a hi-tech economy to one that is knowledge-intensive and service-based.

Heinonen points to Kone, the Finnish-based lift and escalator manufacturer. “Even if the core is the machinery, service is already the biggest part of it,” he comments. “You sell a lift only once. You service it, maybe in the best case for 50 years, so the service is really the theme that you should build around.”

Tourism and the creative economy are also playing a large part in that shift. Helsinki, for example, is the World Design Capital for 2012.

“I also see that we have a responsibility in trying to find new forms of growth, and sustainable growth,” Heinonen adds.

“I think that our close relationship to nature in Finland will help that: green growth [and] a green, sustainable economy will be a strong point.”

Finnish enterprises in the cleantech sector are benefitting from emerging markets in China, where they are helping clients solve environmental problems. Specific success stories include Forchem (biofuels), The Switch (wind) and Eniram (transport), all of which were finalists in this year’s Global Cleantech Awards.

Asked for his key message for Ireland’s decision-makers, Heinonen emphasises the importance of looking around and learning from others. “Try to find the different successful models and then adapt those models and try to put them into the local context,” he advises.

Boldness in making decisions is also a key factor and is an area in which Finland needs to improve. “If you don’t put things into practice, you never learn what’s happening,” Heinonen remarks. “I think we need to be more action-orientated and, by being action-orientated, we are testing things. And by being a small country, as we both are, we can actually ‘turn the ship’ quite quickly. If we find that the thing that we decided isn’t actually working, we can back up quite easily and I think that’s the advantage we should use as a small country: to be more flexible and agile.”

Promising opportunities

Finland’s structural crises, Heinonen identifies, are the difficulties affecting Nokia and related ICT companies and lower demand for newspapers and other printed material, in turn affecting paper and forestry production. That said, the Nokia Lumia phone has hit the market at the right time and the company’s development of iPhone touch screen technology gives it an added revenue stream.

Rovio Entertainment’s Angry Birds game is a good example of how a start-up company can quickly become a hub and a nearly global brand. A comprehensive app for Helsinki’s public transport systems was rapidly developed after the data were released last year. “We don’t have to create new data all the time,” Heinonen remarked. “We can also have a new, very innovative way of utilising and exploiting existing data.”

How is the reform of public services progressing?

Tom Geraghty

I have a personal objection to the term reform, as if there was some inherent deficiency in the Public Service. However, inevitably in the circumstances where the Government has less money to spend on public services, as any other set of organisations would do, it will have to look at how it delivers its services. In particular, how to deliver its services with fewer staff, as part of the programme is staff reduction, and it has done it fairly successfully.

By the time the current Croke Park Agreement expires, there will be 38,000 fewer people working in public services and public services have not collapsed. That is simply because the Public Service has had to re-organise how it delivers its services and that has happened right across the board.

Patricia Byron

I would concur with the progress that has been made and not to “throw the baby out with the bath water”. There has always been a lot that has worked and will continue to work. We have a good change programme and it’s underway. We also need to recognise the goodwill and flexibility of our staff. Although we are all committed to change, I think we need to now look at the process and pace of change. The issue now is really the pace of change.

Kevin Daly

It’s important to recognise that the quantum of reform in the programme is the largest amount of reform undertaken since the foundation of the State. There are very strong governance arrangements with a Cabinet committee dedicated to public sector reform. There is an advisory group of secretary-generals and a Reform Delivery Board which is made up of mainly assistant secretary-generals which meets regularly to drive the reform agenda.

From our experience, getting the governance right is the most important thing for organisational change and that is being done quite well. We have been working with the four largest sectors (health, education, justice and local government) to make sure they have their governance systems right as well.

Jim Costello

Firstly, I would also acknowledge that good progress has been made in terms of the reform of public services. We have been through a number of tough budgets and there are still two to go and that’s where the partnerships need to get stronger, and not just within the public sector but between the private sector and the public sector. That partnership needs to mature and there is a great opportunity for that to happen.

Gary Comiskey

Our view in the Department of Finance, on whether you call it change, transformation or reform, is that you can never do enough. We need to keep working to continuously improve the way we do things and to find greater efficiencies. The large budget deficits have been a real catalyst for change. I have also found that the level of co-operation from staff has been remarkable. Perhaps to illustrate the point (for someone like myself who has come in as an outsider with new ideas), people at the start said: “You will get push back and people are probably not going to listen to someone who is not an established civil servant.” But that has certainly not been the case. Everyone has been extremely co-operative and I think we have benefited mutually. I bring outside ideas and experience and I have learned a lot from the people I work with.

How big a role will external service delivery play in the current transformation programme for public services?

Kevin Daly

Although it is not a panacea for all the State’s problems, external service delivery has a role to play. It is in the Public Sector Reform Plan and there has been a government decision back in July that all new services need to be tested against external service delivery before any new service is approved. This is driving a culture of assessing whether we can do things externally before we do them internally. In certain situations, it will be the right way to go. We are looking at tasks which would be described as ‘low subjectivity, high volume’ and perhaps lower skilled tasks that may be suitable for external delivery.

Tom Geraghty

It is not going to come as a surprise that employees don’t like outsourcing. It makes them fearful in respect of their own jobs. There are also considerations such as this race to the bottom, where you drive down costs irrespective of consequences, and that is something that will always be resisted by trade unions. On the other hand, if you ask me: “Is there no scope ever for external service delivery?” Of course there are opportunities. Inevitably, there are tasks to be performed and the skill set isn’t immediately available in the Public Service. The difficulty has been that the Public Service hasn’t been good at transferring skills.

There appears to be limited outsourcing at present. Is that the case?

Kevin Daly

That was also my misconception before I started in DPER. My first task was to identify what has already been done and I now have a long list of services that have already been delivered externally and some of them for a long time. For example, the Department of Agriculture’s calf registration scheme. There is a myriad of other services delivered externally which are often taken as ‘business-as-usual’.

Jim Costello

I think the intention from the private sector stand point would be to leave as much space as possible available for improving front-line services across the public sector. We believe that there is significant scope in terms of the back office and non-core services. The pace of change in technology and the expertise in the private sector offers a great opportunity to help with the reform agenda.

I would emphasise that this has to be done in a partnership by building trust through collaboration. Any outsourcing should focus on the transfer and training mechanisms, to make it a positive and respectful experience for everyone involved. There is no shortage of respect for the public sector in the work they have done to date.

Patricia Byron

I think we have to go back to the basic principle of deciding what is core and non-core work, and then look at how you manage things. In the public sector, we hire people to very advanced educational standards, with many graduates and post-graduates. Are we making best use of their skills base? For example with the gardaí, should a well-trained Garda be working at a desk taking in an application form or arranging a medical late in the evening or would they be better re-deployed?

The first step is to look at core and non-core and look at how to use the resources on hand. Then look at how you re-deploy, then the use of shared services and in that space you also look at external service delivery.

I don’t think it is an either/or but a better use of current staff, recognising people’s skills. It is probably using the decision-makers on the Public Service side and outsourcing the more routine and high volume matters.

Have we made generalists out of the specialists we hired? We need to awaken the skill base we have and up-skill and motivate them. I see a role for the IPA in that regard.

Is outsourcing just about cost reduction? What about quality of service delivery?

Kevin Daly

We have developed a business case template for looking at areas that are possibly suitable for external service delivery and we have given guidance on what should be analysed. Obviously, cost is included but also effectiveness and quality of service. It is not a simple equation about cost. It has to be about the same level of service or better at a lower cost.

Jim Costello

One of the areas where collaboration between the public and private sectors works very well is in the regulated sectors, such as telecoms and the utilities. That is one area where cost is regulated to ensure the customer is treated fairly and gets a good level of service.

What are the barriers to implementing an outsourcing project?

Jim Costello

There is a requirement for trust to build collaboration. There has been great faith shown in the willingness to work together and to bring in mechanisms to help that collaboration work. That has got to continue and develop. As regards core versus non-core, it is not a panacea and there must be a clear separation as to what is right to do and what is not, and there should be no broad-brush approach to that. There are issues with perceptions such as a race to the bottom. That is not the case. Respect for the person, the employee, is critical.

Reflecting on the opportunities, Irish companies employ between 6,000 and 7,000 people already working in this sector today. There are some great Irish companies providing services as well as international companies bring in experience from elsewhere.

There is also a tremendous export potential with the second biggest market for such services on our doorstep. For example, we are employing people in our company in Cork to deliver services into the UK. Technology is also a major opportunity, particularly in terms of cloud computing. There are also opportunities in the legal sense with allowing data to be shared across the public services.

Kevin Daly

The most obvious barriers are around the existing employees in those roles. The Croke Park Agreement means there are no compulsory redundancies and therefore re-deployment is the obvious answer. If that is not possible they can choose voluntary redundancy or under the TUPE (transfer of undertakings regulations protect employee terms and conditions) arrangements they will be given the opportunity to move to the new supplier if that is what they choose to do. I guess that is the elephant in the room that cannot be ignored and needs to be tackled.

Tom Geraghty

The way the topic is described suggests barriers to outsourcing are bad things and I wouldn’t accept that at all. Undoubtedly the existing employees will always be a barrier to outsourcing. We dealt with that in the Croke Park Agreement in a practical way.

We were never going to agree to compulsory redundancies but the Croke Park Agreement recognises that there will be circumstances where there will be outsourcing, and we will place certain requirements on the employer before we give our acquiescence. Simply because an outside body pays its staff less should never be material in deciding whether a service is carried out inside or outside the Public Service.

Patricia Byron

Where there is outsourcing with a business case, there are very good Irish companies that can provide such services and we should recognise that. We see in the US and UK the reversal of offshoring to onshoring.

As regards barriers and difficulties, we have to be very careful about loss of corporate memory. I have experience of that in the private sector, in financial services, where I saw a drive to bring down the number of providers for a particular service from 20 to four. After a number of years, the four providers controlled the market and were no longer so accommodating. As the purchaser of any outsourced service I would have that in the back of my mind.

In the case of re-deployment, I would prefer to focus on mobility. Working with other chief executives in this space, we feel we should harness all the good specialists that there are and many of them are doing generalist jobs. We should mobilise them and put the right people in the right jobs.

Kevin Daly

Public servants can be risk-averse and often the barriers are more perceived than real. For example, when it comes to data sharing, there is often a reluctance to share, whereas the issues around this are very manageable. Other barriers include the lack of good quality management information. If you want to write a good contract, you need good data on the cost and effectiveness of any service.

Gary Comiskey

The lack of information is a real challenge for us in the Department [of Finance] in trying to understand areas identified for change. We have done a lot in introducing a better intranet to get better sharing of information.

Another challenge is that sometimes in the public sector we perceive some of the work that we do is somehow unique and it couldn’t be replicated. This is a perception and not a reality.

Also some of the processes we have, have been built up over time and have become quite complex and include additional areas that you wouldn’t see in other sectors.

We should build in process change when considering any shared service or outsourcing. Simply replicating what we do and trying to do it somewhere else will not bring a successful outcome.

I agree with Jim, there is a huge opportunity for Ireland to become a centre of excellence for types of activity. That provides a great opportunity for people both in the Public Service and in the private sector.

David Kelly

On the issue of access to information, as someone who deals with various procurement teams across the public sector, there is often a lack of experience and expertise around procuring services in certain quarters.

When it comes to running tenders, I see a role for DPER in ensuring there is a good understanding and knowledge in how to procure services if external service delivery has been decided on.

Jim Costello

There is also an opportunity to create a level playing field around the issue of VAT. The current rules put VAT on private sector providers but not on public sector providers.

Kevin Daly

We have developed a business case template which instructs people not to include VAT when comparing in-house and external providers.

Focusing on the positive side of outsourcing, what have been the good examples?

Kevin Daly

There are quite a few projects underway at the moment, although not yet at the delivery stage. Social Protection are looking at labour market activation services, HSE is looking at payroll and Revenue are looking at customer contact services for the new property tax.

Jim Costello

There are a lot of good examples of existing models. One is in agriculture with the administration of the traceability of food; this protects a €9 billion industry. Another example is the speed cameras which have resulted in the drop in road deaths. By collaborating with the private sector and using their capital to invest, you can affect improvement of services to the public.

Patricia Byron

In the Injuries Board, we have moved personal injuries from the courts to an administrative process. All our staff are decision-makers dealing with core work and then the day-to-day work of handling paper, putting it up on the system, paying doctors and so on is outsourced. That has brought about a saving of €100 million per annum over the past nine years. There is so much more that can be done in this space where we have got adversarial litigious processes dealing with routine issues that should be dealt with in a more administrative way and where we can bring in legislation to say: “These matters will be dealt with in an administrative way.” This model can be adapted to a whole range of activities across the state where disputes arise, not just personal injury. There is a lot of potential for savings but also for improved services to the customers: our citizens.

David Kelly

It is also fair to say that there have be some negative examples but the positives, certainly in our experience, far outweigh the negatives. People are inclined to remember the negative stories.

In Ireland we are a number of years behind other jurisdictions, such as the UK, Sweden and Australia. Here it hasn’t been about a revolution but more about ‘the private sector can help’. One area outsourcing can assist is where there is seasonality in demand. The agriculture case study happens in three months of the year, where you staff up for that short period. That type of employment pattern doesn’t lend itself to the public sector model, where you need that flexibility and intensity.

What would be the one issue to focus on to make any outsourcing successful?

Jim Costello

Trust and collaboration. To create the environment for competitive dialogue to occur because there is significant opportunity for both the public sector employees and for the private sector to gain from that collaboration, whether that is skills transfer, more jobs or better ways of doing things.

Kevin Daly

For me, the key issue is skills development in the Public Service. For the people who are going to be running and managing these processes. It would be a disaster for the reform changes to be implemented poorly. That wouldn’t be good for anyone. That’s a lose-lose situation. So conscious of the skills deficit, we should be working towards up-skilling the public servants.

Gary Comiskey

We have done a lot of the preparation and planning, and have made a good start. What we need to do now is get on and implement and if we make a decision, whether it is outsourcing or shared services, we need to make sure we get those processes rolling and get concrete examples delivered. There are lots of projects underway and we need keep that going.

Patricia Byron

We should keep our eye on the prize which is better services at lower cost. Outsourcing is one of a variety of tools when used appropriately. It is not a panacea and should only be used when there is a solid business case.

Tom Geraghty

I would have a similar view. In public discourse over the past few years, you may have been made to believe that we live in an either/or situation. Public sector bad: private sector good. That’s frankly nonsense. I do accept there are occasions when it is necessary to go out to outsource activity and, provided there is a pragmatic view taken and that it takes account of the fears of the people how work in the Public Service have about outsourcing, it could play some role but you could over-state its significance. It is important that the Public Service itself gets its own act fully in order, so that options like shared services operating within the system are looked at first.

David Kelly

I would mirror just what Tom has said. In our experience, the worst thing to do is to outsource something that is broken. We work across multi-nationals, large corporates, as well as the public sector and it is critical that it is done in a way that a problem isn’t outsourced because that typically spells disaster. So in terms of government policy, external service delivery should be considered for new services and for existing performing services.

The participants

Patricia Byron
Chairperson, Association of Chief Executives of State Agencies

As well as chairing ACESA, Patricia is the Chief Executive of InjuriesBoard.ie, an independent State body. She previously worked in the insurance sector for over 20 years, and also serves on the Board of the Institute of Public Administration.

Gary Comiskey
Chief Operations Officer, Department of Finance

Gary assumed his current position in 2011 on secondment from Deloitte. He is working closely with the Secretary General and his Management Advisory Committee colleagues to drive the department’s transformation programme and to achieve the outcomes set out in the department’s revised statement of strategy.

Jim Costello
Chief Executive Officer, SouthWestern

Before joining SouthWestern in 2003, Jim Costello previously spent 15 years in the IT and outsourcing sectors in Ireland and internationally. He joined SouthWestern as the company moved from IT processing into a full business process outsourcing company.

Kevin Daly
Commercial Delivery Manager, Department of Public Expenditure and Reform

Kevin recently joined DPER from the New South Wales Department of Premier and Cabinet where he led cross-departmental service delivery reform projects in the Strategy and Project Delivery Unit. Prior to this he held management and change focused analytical roles for four years in Australia’s largest food multi-nationals.

Tom Geraghty
General Secretary, Public Service Executive Union

Tom is a member of the Implementation Body for the Public Service Agreement 2010-2014, the so-called Croke Park Agreement. He is also a member of the ICTU Executive Council and Secretary of the Public Services Committee of ICTU.

David Kelly
Chief Commercial Officer, SouthWestern

David Kelly is the Chief Commercial Officer for SouthWestern and has been with the company since January 2011. He is responsible for the commercial development and growth of SouthWestern’s business in Ireland and overseas, and is based in SouthWestern’s offices in Dublin and London.

eircom has delivered communication solutions and services to public service bodies for many years and is acutely aware of the challenges they face on a day-to-day basis. Managing costs is crucial and the ability to have a clear picture of expenditure is essential when making purchasing decisions.

Following an extensive programme of investment in our mobile network, eMobile, eircom’s mobile phone service, has been named as an official participant on the Government Framework. eircom is uniquely positioned, in terms of technology and expertise, to provide the level of connectivity expected of government agencies in today’s fast-moving environment.

Alex explains why eMobile is the right choice when government and public service bodies are choosing a communications provider. “eMobile has been a trusted choice in the consumer and SME mobile market since it was launched in 2009 and is a growing mobile operator in the market. We know that value is fundamental to the running of these organisations and we have developed and tailored our unlimited mobile plans to give government agencies the cost control required,” he comments.

“We are keenly aware that each government area has different needs and that is why we can tailor our mobile plans. A dedicated account manager is assigned to each agency and is available to discuss the changing needs of the organisation. Flexibility is a big part of business today both in the private and public sector,” Alex adds. eMobile also has a Business Support centre which is on hand to respond to the needs of the organisations it works with. “We know our customers rely on our service and if they need support we are on hand to provide it 24/7,” says Alex.

Visibility of expenditure is important. For this reason, eMobile has developed a tool that will allow customers to stay on top of spending at all times and it allows the user to drill down to the detail it needs. “This facility allows each government department to generate reports on data customised by site, account or cost centre. The reports can also be tailored to each area’s specific needs from our secure online customer portal,” Alex continues.

Alex also explained that another factor for organisations when choosing a communications provider is the necessity to always be connected or contactable. “The flexibility to check your email and work while on the go is part and parcel of everyday life. The move towards smartphones and tablets has increased the need for a robust network and eircom is investing heavily in its infrastructure.

“The network offers 99 per cent population coverage in Ireland and we will roll out 4G services later this year to ensure our customers will be able to avail of the latest advances in technology. Our nation-wide WiFiHub hotspots give our customers the ability access free WiFi right across the country. That is why we are committed to building Ireland’s largest WiFi network and we are already well underway with over 1,700 WiFiHub hotspots in place in key locations for business such as at Dublin Airport, Irish Rail and Dart stations as well as petrol stations and cafes across the country,” says Alex.

Smartphone usage has increase by

19.9 per cent from 2011 with two out of three companies using smartphones for business. These stats hammer home the need and importance for public service bodies and government agencies to drive efficiencies through transforming ways of working and choosing the right mobile partner to enable this change. We believe eMobile can meet the needs of every organisation, large or small,” Alex remarks.

Alex concludes: “At eircom, we have designed a mobile service that works smarter for government giving our customers the complete benefit of eircom’s expertise and scale. Switching to eMobile is easy and our dedicated account managers are on hand to ensure the process runs smoothly. Our message is simple: moving to eMobile brings simplicity and strength in business.”

eircom in brief

eircom is the leading telecoms operator in Ireland with the most advanced and extensive fixed and mobile network. With over 2 million customers, the company provides a comprehensive range of voice, data and broadband services to the residential, small business, enterprise and government markets.

In addition, eircom Wholesale is the largest wholesale operator in Ireland, providing products and services to more than 28 wholesale customers, across a range of regulated and unregulated markets such as cloud computing, ICT services and solutions and managed security and services. eircom also owns the largest WiFi network in Ireland with over 1,700 hotspots around the country.

For more information on eMobile:
Tel: 1800 303 498
Web: emobile.ie/business

“It is now accepted that Ireland is in a leading position when it comes to renewable energy. As I travel the world it comes up over and over again and it is huge credit to the policy-makers and all those who made that happen,” says Andy Kinsella, who is CEO of Mainstream’s offshore wind business and responsible for the company’s Energy Bridge project.

Mainstream Renewable Power is a continuity play from Airtricity, the wind energy company founded by entrepreneur Eddie O’Connor and sold for €2 billion five years ago. Mainstream was set up almost immediately and in the five years since then it has quickly become a global leader in renewable energy. The company has been built on what Kinsella calls “three pillars for growth”:

• North America, the biggest energy market in the world;

• offshore in the North Sea, with the recognition that offshore wind will be the biggest renewable energy technology deployed over the next few years; and

• developing markets “as we do not see this as just something for OECD countries.”

The company has roughly 1GW of onshore developments in Canada and 1GW in the US, where its first project was built in mid-2012. Two more projects are going into construction in Canada this year.

As for developing markets, Mainstream has nearly 3GW of developments in Chile and will start the construction of three new projects in the country this year.

“Like our American project, they are joint ventures with Goldwind from China and China Development Bank,” he explains. In South Africa, Mainstream is the sector leader with 18 per cent of projects awarded under the first round renewable energy support scheme i.e. the Jeffries Bay 138MW wind farm and the De Ar and droogfontein solar PV projects (each 50MW). In offshore wind, it is the biggest independent developer in the world, with 4.45 GW in the UK and 1.2GW in Germany.

Kinsella recalls that when the company was founded five years ago, its founding principle was: “The world is on a once-off transition from fossil fuels to sustainability. Mainstream exists to be a leader of this transition.”

He contends that the “power of ideas” motivates people and gets things done. “We can argue about peak oil and gas but everybody recognises that it is only an issue of timing,” he says. “Fossil fuels are not here forever and this transition is going to happen. I believe it is going to happen quicker than many people expect.”

This once-off transition was highlighted in Barack Obama’s inauguration speech in January. He said: “The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult but America cannot resist this transition. We must lead it.”

Obama went on to emphasise the economic opportunity in the transition: “We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries. We must claim that promise. That is how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure: our forests and waterways, our croplands and snow-capped peaks.”

This is as true for Ireland as it is for the world’s largest economy.

Opportunity

Ireland is well on its way to meeting its 2020 targets of 40 per cent of electricity from renewables but making progress has been more challenging for the UK. “The build out of wind has been much slower than predicted,” Kinsella explains. “They have very big challenges in the heating and transport sectors so they may well look to the electricity sector to make up the shortfall in those sectors.”

In addition, 15GW of coal-fired plants will close under the Large Combustion Plant Directive by 2022. This will lead to a major dip in capacity in the UK around 2017-2018, which creates an opportunity for Ireland.

“There is a phrase well-known in Irish history: ‘England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity,’” Kinsella surmises. “I see it more as current mutual difficulties that present us with mutual opportunities; Ireland has a severe economic crisis but has a vast renewable energy resource in wind. The UK is heading towards a challenging energy capacity situation. There is a huge opportunity for Ireland to attract major investment, to create jobs and create exports.”

He usually can see both sides of an argument but the protectionist case in energy does not stack up for Ireland. Instead, the export opportunity can be compared to agriculture.

“As a country, we are four million people and we export enough agricultural produce to feed 30 million,” he states. “So should we just produce enough agricultural products for four million and not export? Renewable energy is a national resource and the UK needs it to meet its climate change targets, and to meet its energy deficit in the run-up to 2020.”

Developing the Energy Bridge project will also have no negative impact on the Irish wind industry, which has focused on the west coast to date. “We are proposing to develop the overlooked resources in the midlands of Ireland (centred on County Offaly), using turbines for lower wind speeds, and low is relative,” he comments. Offaly’s wind speeds are low relative to the west of Ireland but not to Germany which already has 20GW installed: “So we can economically put large scale wind farms in the midlands even though wind speeds may be a little bit lower.”

A first phase of 1.2GW is proposed for 2017-2018. Mainstream has already signed up enough landowners to develop 0.8GW and its target is to have enough land to install 1.2GW plus 30 per cent, to account for any changes in land use in the meantime, by April of this year. This work is “well on target”.

He continues: “We will then develop two clusters of wind farms connected to two converters and then run underground cables to the coast for dispatch to the UK.” The company has signed a 5GW inter-connection agreement with the British National Grid, which can be taken up in four phases between 2017 and 2018.

“We have some history in this respect in that on the east coast, of England, we have 2.45GW of connections signed up for the last three years,” Kinsella points out. Another 2GW is ready to be signed and will therefore give Mainstream nearly 4.5GW on the east coast as well as 5GW with Energy Bridge on the west coast.

Benefits

“Following the money is always interesting,” he says. “We believe that 5GW of exports to the UK each year will be worth €1 billion. Investment in power generation will be worth between

€7.5 billion and €14 billion, depending on the source i.e. onshore, offshore or a combination of both. Separately, the project will require around €6 billion of investment in transmission facilities. Over its life-time, he expects that it will provide around €12.5 billion in tax revenues to the State, initially delivering €1.4 billion by 2020.

“For local communities, we all know the effects of the current crisis have had, particularly on rural areas,” Kinsella adds. “The midlands and the north west are worst impacted, with unemployment rates of over 20 per cent. €900 million will be paid in rates to local authorities, with €8.4 million annually per phase, and this will bring significant local benefits.”

He is, though, reluctant to be drawn on a figure for jobs as there is “a lot of hyperbole” about those numbers. “The only thing I would say is that it will be significant,” he remarks. Direct jobs in infrastructure, manufacturing, design and legal services, in the first phase, will bring about 1,800 jobs into the local community.

“If we build out to 5GW you could get a different figure,” he adds. “Currently in Ireland, we employ about 1.5 people per MW installed.”

The European Wind Energy Association has analysed economies which have maximised their advantage in the full value chain. Germany and Denmark have 15 man years of employment per MW.

“For 5GW, that equates to between 7,500 and 75,000 man years,” Kinsella says, “The number we end up with depends on the level of effort people like ourselves and government put into developing the supply chain in Ireland to ensure we get the R&D and manufacturing elements.”

Conservatively, Mainstream has said that 5GW will result in 40,000 man years over seven years but, in conclusion, he emphasises that this all depends on the value chain being in place. “As a sustainable business, it depends on getting the R&D and the manufacturing, and continuing to build wind farms to export this resource to the UK and beyond and having a related manufacturing business also focused on exporting.”

Profile: Andy Kinsella

A native of Arklow, County Wicklow, Kinsella graduated in engineering from University College Dublin. He worked for ESB Power Generation for two years before moving to General Electric, which took him to its HQ in Schenectady, upstate New York. After his training came a ‘world tour’ on large scale gas turbine projects. Kinsella then joined ESB International, where he was on the senior management team for three years, and then left to join the board of Siemens, heading up their energy and transportation businesses in Ireland.

He then returned to ESB international as a Director, before moving to the senior management team of ESB Power Generation and subsequently setting up Mainstream He runs a couple of half marathons every year, and is an avid hiker (conquests include Mont Blanc and Kilimanjaro) and a level two kayaker: “Anything outdoors is a real passion.” He also enjoys painting, cooking and reading. He met his wife Angela while skiing in France.

The European Union’s national governments have agreed a common negotiating position on CAP reform following talks chaired by Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney. The next step is the ‘trilogue’ stage i.e. negotiations between the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and the European Commission. These will start on 11 April and the Government wants to achieve a final deal by the end of the Irish presidency on 30 June.

“It is difficult to overestimate the scale of today’s achievement, given the range and complexity of issues which have had to be addressed by member states,” Coveney said when the agreement was announced on 19 March. “It has proved possible thanks to the determined commitment of my colleagues to reach an agreement, which has been matched by their readiness to compromise on what for them have been extremely sensitive issues.”

The deal includes the option of internal convergence: an Irish Government proposal allowing CAP funds to be redistributed within member states, extra flexibility on how direct payments are linked to environmental improvements, and the ending of sugar quotas by 2017.

For the first time, the Parliament will be a ‘co-legislator’ in the process, giving it equal status to that of the national governments. The Parliament and the Council both claim to represent the interests of EU citizens, as both include elected representatives.

The Parliament’s Agriculture Committee wants to cap payments at €300,000 and give producer organisations more power to negotiate on behalf of farmers. The committee includes two full members from Ireland: Liam Aylward (Fianna Fáil) and Mairead McGuinness (Fine Gael). Marian Harkin (Independent) and Phil Prendergast (Labour) are substitute members.

Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Cioloş welcomed the progress made. Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) President John Bryan welcomed the flexibilities included in the deal but warned that “tens of thousands of farmers will still lose significant amounts from their single farm payment.” The IFA is calling for the minimum redistribution of payments over the longest possible timeframe.

Fianna Fáil Agriculture Spokesman Éamon Ó Cuív welcomed the option of frontloading payments (proposed by the French Government) but doubted that a deal would be done by June. Fianna Fáil favours payment caps and maximum national flexibility “so that each country can design a programme that suits its national circumstances.”

Sinn Féin MEP Martina Anderson called for more details on how the proposed system would work in practice. Sinn Féin wants to cap payments at €100,000.

The current gross value added of EU agriculture stands at €159.4 billion. France had the largest farming industry (€30.9 billion), accounting for a fifth of the total. Ireland’s GVA output is €1.73 billion, which ranks fifteenth out of the 27 member states.

CAP has been allocated €44 billion in 2013, making up 29 per cent of the total EU budget.

Dave Kirwan, Managing Director, discusses how Bord Gáis Energy adopted renewable energy as part of its commercial strategy, the challenges facing the Irish energy market and his views on the future of Irish energy.

Renewables portfolio

Ten years ago, before entering the electricity market, Bord Gáis developed a strategy to grow its supply business. It recognised that the company’s supply wing had to develop a strategic investments division “charged with delivering an asset portfolio, commensurate with a dual energy business in Ireland.”

He recalls: “Strategically our view was, that to have a retail position and to offer certainty for prices for customers in a short to medium term, we had to have certainty at the production level. That’s why we set about building our assets.”

The first investment was the development of the conventional power station Whitegate. “Whitegate was a key decision for the organisation and it was the pre-cursor for us doing the Big Switch, which was our first move into the residential electricity market.” Operational since November 2010, the Whitegate plant has a capacity of 445MW. “It is a state-of-the-art combine cycle turbine plant based on general electric, 9FB technology. Because of its reliability and efficiency it has also proven to be probably the most flexible CCTG (combined cycle turbine generator) plant on the system today.”

In late 2009, having recognised that there would be increasing influence of wind generation on the market Bord Gáis Energy secured the acquisition of SWS wind energy. “That gave us ready access to three key elements operating wind assets, a near-term growth development pipeline and the skills and competencies of the SWS team combined with our own people to bring these developments to market.”

Currently Bord Gáis Energy has an operating portfolio of 680MW and a near-term development portfolio of about 200MW. It has also recently expanded into tidal energy development.

Tidal Ventures Ltd (a joint venture between Bord Gáis Energy and OpenHydro) was recently awarded exclusive rights to develop a 100MW tidal energy farm off Torr Head on the north coast of Antrim. It will be the first development of its kind on the island of Ireland.

“We had been looking at developing opportunities in tidal energy for about two years,” says Kirwan and winning the rights to develop this project was “a major milestone for the development of tidal resources in Ireland and marks our ongoing commitment to renewable assets.

“This project is very consistent with our overall strategy of investing in the next generation of energy technologies that can provide competitive electricity to Irish consumers.”

Kirwan believes that tidal could potentially make a significant contribution to Ireland’s renewable targets. “The net effect of this project is that it will be a key component of achieving the overall renewable targets for the island. The site that we have exclusive right to develop on is the best in the country, and we have an exclusive right to establish whether we could develop a commercial tidal project there for the next number of years. By the end of 2014 to the middle of 2015, we will have committed in excess of €1billion in investment in renewable energy in Ireland.”

Challenges

European market integration will bring about inevitable changes and a key challenge according to Kirwan will be “how to derive benefit for Irish customers from greater interconnectivity with the European energy market” that is “without losing sight of the three key tenets of energy policy which are: security, competitiveness and sustainability.”

Bord Gáis Energy is well placed to overcome these challenges, in his view. “Harnessing and exploiting Ireland’s wind resources is well understood and is supported by Government policy; the benefits of that are already being derived.

“Whitegate is pretty well positioned in a target model context because it can provide ancillary service support to the Irish system better than previous generation CCTGs.” In addition, Bord Gáis Energy’s wind fleet has been well developed and Kirwan is confident it will deliver high available and high load factor wind to the system.

Ireland’s position in wind and onshore wind represents a hedge, certainly against volatility in the fossil fuel market. “There are times in the year when gas volumes are down and our wind portfolio is performing well and vice versa,” he says. “So, on an EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation] line we are seeing the benefits of that diversity.”

On the home energy side, energy efficiency targets are also challenging. “We need to find a way to bridge that gap for us as energy businesses to facilitate reduced use of the product that we sell and clearly the customer has to be complicit in achieving that strategy.” The problem that Bord Gáis Energy and indeed other nations and markets alike have faced has been the access to funds at a household level to invest in energy efficiency. However, Kirwan points out that they are “committed as an energy organisation to engaging with Government on the better energy scheme (the pay as you save initiative) to develop innovative ways of delivering energy efficiency and bringing benefit to Irish energy customers.”

Future of Irish energy

With challenging goals set by the European Union in relation to lowering carbon emissions and increasing output from renewables by 2020, Kirwan believes that as a nation, Ireland is in a good position in terms of meeting our targets, compared to other European countries.

“I think Irish energy policy has worked up to now. In generation terms, Ireland is not short on capacity. It has delivered significant renewable investment and is in a better position than some of our neighbouring countries to fulfil its environmental obligations.”

In relation to engaging with the target model and European market integration, “we should attempt to blend the best of what we have done with the opportunities that change will bring.”

He adds: “Countries like the UK and Germany are still wrestling to discover what will help them achieve their obligations in a manner that doesn’t produce price shock for customers. Over the next 12-18 months we will have greater sight of what direction those markets will take and how that will influence our own strategy here.”

For Kirwan customers are already realising the benefits of Bord Gáis Energy’s investment in renewable energy. “We remain the supplier that offers the lowest standard rate of electricity in the residential market. We are the energy company that brought about residential electricity competition and choice to the Irish energy customer. A key part of that are the investments we have made and will continue to make going forward.”

Profile: Dave Kirwan

With responsibility for the overall business strategy and delivering commercial growth for Bord Gáis Energy, Managing Director, Dave Kirwan has been working with the organisation for over 14 years. He set up Firmus Energy in Northern Ireland, an integrated distribution and retail business, and was responsible for establishing the strategic investments division (latterly the Assets Division) of Bord Gáis Energy. An Electronic Engineer (UCD), Dave also holds an MBA and Doctorate (DBA Business Economics from UCC.